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Perlin (PERL) price gains 100% as the focus on green energy solutions intensifies

Generating momentum and attracting investor attention can be a challenge during the best of times in the cryptocurrency market and it is an even bigger challenge when the markets are choppy like the entire crypto ecosystem has been the past couple of months. 

Despite the recent downturn, Perlin (PERL), which has managed to rally 140% from a low of $0.052 on June 8 to a high of $0.134 on June 18 as its average 24-hour trading volume surged from $3 million to $122 million.

PERL/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Three reasons for the increase in price and demand for PERL include the release of the PERL.eco registration ledger, the launch of PerlinX on the Binance Smart Chain and attractive staking options allowing token holders to earn a yield on various cryptocurrencies.

Tokenizing real-world biological assets

PERL’s rally on June 6 and June 14 came in response to the release of PERL.eco, the “Planetary Ecosystem Registration Ledger” which enables the tokenization of real-world bioecological assets.

According to the project’s blog page, PERL.eco is an “attempt to democratize the biosphere economy through liquidity pools and tokenization of biodiversity and carbon credits to decentralized finance.”

As an added incentive to hold PERL, airdrops of tokenized carbon credits will be distributed to wallets holding PERL which can be used by token holders to “offset their carbon footprint or trade on the liquidity pool when the token is released.”

PERL will also be used as the governance token of the DAO, enabling holders to vote on the distribution and fee model as well as participate in other important decisions that affect the ecosystem.

Binance Smart Chain integration leads to lower fees

A second driver of increased momentum for PERL was the mid-April launch of the protocols DeFi interface platform PerlinX on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), a move that was done in an effort to help lower transaction fees.

Operating on BSC also allowed PerlinX’s liquidity pools to be listed on PancakeSwap and helped to increase the number of farming opportunities available to the PerlinX community.

As a further bonus for PERL liquidity providers, yields earned on PancakeSwap are paid out in the protocol’s native CAKE token which can then be redeposited in the Perlin pool to earn PERL as a form of compound interest.

For PERL holders who wish to remain on the Ethereum (ETH) network, the PerlinX platform offers several options to earn a yield including simple staking as well as liquidity pools between PERL and Wrapped Ether (WETH), Binance USD (BUSD), Balancer (BAL), Dai (DAI) and USD Coin (USDC).

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for PERL have been favorable for some time.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. PERL price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for PERL has been in the green for the majority of the past 7 days and registered a score of 67 on June 14, roughly ten hours before the price increased 100% over the next two days.

With the green energy movement and concerns related to the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the forefront of global discussions, blockchain projects that offer working solutions like Perlin and its PERL.eco platform could possibly receive increased attention.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Perlin (PERL) price gains 100% as the focus on green energy solutions intensifies

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Cointelegraph Consulting: Research outlines how DeFi can merge with traditional finance

Whilst public adoption of crypto assets is increasing, the global regulations continue to progress and recognise decentralized technologies as a suitable infrastructure for the dematerialisation of securities. In Luxembourg, the country that is second in the world in terms of assets under management, the country’s regulator adopted a bill that explicitly recognised the possibility of using distributed ledger technology for the dematerialisation of securities. 

The regulation is moving quickly elsewhere across Europe: Tokenized securities now fall under the same rules and regulations as traditional financial instruments in many other European countries including France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the UK.

Read the ebook to discover how you can be part of this emerging digital asset industry. Download the full report here.

What next for the industry? Due to the increase in public adoption and the favourable regulatory environment, demand from the financial industry to access digital networks is on the rise. So far, banks have digitized the retail industry but not much has evolved in capital markets.

The digitization of this industry is now possible through the blockchain, an infrastructure now widely recognized by the largest governments globally for financial instruments. Funds and asset managers can now upgrade their distribution channels by launching Digital Asset Marketplace (DAM) and connecting to others via decentralized networks.

DAMs will help their customers discover new opportunities, manage their investments and even open secondary market possibilities. In this ebook, industry participants explain how capital market players can benefit from blockchain by launching a DAM and maximizing the monetization of their investor base.

Financial institutions are beginning to publicly embrace and adopt the technology. So far they have started, as expected, with crypto-assets. Once they begin to trust the technology and it becomes embedded within their portfolios, it will mean one thing: curiosity will peak and these institutions will realise the operational benefits of decentralized technology.

Driven by increased confidence in the technology, and pressured by DeFi replacing many traditional banking functions, institutions will begin to learn that the technology can solve long-standing and deeply entrenched industry problems, particularly in the opaque and highly illiquid private markets.

Digital Asset Marketplaces, i.e. primary and secondary venues where investors meet, will be the driver for this according to the study. However, open source standards like the Token for Regulated EXchanges (T-REX), are required to enforce compliance onchain in a heavily regulated world.

Cointelegraph Consulting: Research outlines how DeFi can merge with traditional finance

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BNB price surges as Binance Smart Chain grows in popularity with DeFi

Binance Coin (BNB) has been on an absolute tear in the month of February. It traded at $48.93 on Feb. 1 and grew to trade at $304 at the time of publication, amounting to a 521% month-to-date gain and 707% year-to-date gain.

This price rally has led BNB to become the third-largest cryptocurrency, with a $46.5 billion market capitalization. BNB achieved its all-time high of $342.88 on Feb. 19. This price rally and leap in market capitalization could be attributed to Binance Smart Chain gaining popularity within decentralized finance markets and other macroeconomic factors driving the growth of flagship assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) to new all-time highs this week.

While Ether price was rallying to it’s all time highs on Feb. 19, Binance announced on Twitter that they have “ temporarily suspended” withdrawals of Ether and all Ethereum based tokens due to a “congestion issue.” This led to the users not able to trade these tokens for around an hour and left the community speculating what actually happened. This pause led BNB to rise by another $60 in that time while Ether staggered around the same range.

Binance Smart Chain is the main driver?

Apart from macroeconomic factors such as the price of BTC and ETH reaching all-time highs this week, spilling over to drive up the price of BNB, Binance Smart Chain also has been gaining significant traction among the crypto community. BSC was launched in September 2020 and acts as a parallel blockchain to Binance Chain while enabling smart contract functionality and the staking mechanism of BNB, which powers Binance Chain as its native token.

Cointelegraph discussed this further with a spokesperson from Binance, who elaborated on the unique benefits that BSC offers users, saying:

“BSC offers a high-performance and low-fee blockchain network that’s compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Developers can worry less about transaction fees and focus more on innovating, while using all of the existing developer tooling they are familiar with in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

The entire Binance ecosystem is powered by BSC. Being a global cryptocurrency exchange with extremely high user traffic, it’s highly essential for scalability and low transaction fees to go hand in hand with the BSC ecosystem. BSC is now being used extensively by various DeFi protocols, with the latest to leave Ethereum for the blockchain being multiservice platform Value DeFi and yield aggregator Harvest Finance, which cited cross-chain yield farming as the prime reason for the shift.

The influence of BSC has extended to various DeFi protocols. Venus, an algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol designed specifically for BSC, saw the price of its Venus Token (XVS) surge over 750% after it was launched on Binance Smart Chain, from a low of $10.04 on Feb. 2 to an all-time high of $95.90 on Feb. 20. 

Another prominent DeFi protocol on BSC is PancakeSwap, which went on to become the first billion-dollar project on the blockchain. It quickly doubled that to pass $2 billion in market capitalization, owing to the growth of its food-themed token, CAKE. Data from Cointelegraph Markets indicates that the price of the CAKE has surged 973% from a low of $1.89 on Feb. 3 to its all-time high of $20.33 on Feb. 19.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, Ilia Maksimenka, CEO of PlasmaPay — a DeFi investment platform — indicated that PancakeSwap could be one of the main reasons for BNB’s price rally:

“PancakeSwap traded over $400 million in daily volume and briefly became the world’s second-largest DEX. Its [BSC’s] unique propositions of a lottery service and a non-fungible token art platform have furthered PancakeSwap’s use cases.”

BSC gaining amid high Ethereum fees

Another reason for the popularity of BSC is the lower transaction fees when compared with Ethereum, which in its state of high demand sidelines retail investors in the DeFi markets, tailoring it more for whales. While Eth2 proposes to sort the transaction fees issue through its scalability solutions, currently there is a lot of congestion on the network due to the increasing popularity of DeFi protocols, leading to high gas fees for all transactions on the Ethereum network.

William Quigley, cryptocurrency fund manager at Magnetic Capital — a crypto-focused investment firm — told Cointelegraph that BNB’s rise comes down to the congestion on the Ethereum blockchain, adding: “Ethereum has an Uber-like surge pricing mechanism. When demand on the chain is high, the price to quickly process a transaction goes up.”

On Feb. 18, BSC recorded 2.5 million transactions on its network, compared with 1.3 million transactions on Ethereum. The Binance spokesperson explained to Cointelegraph why this might be the case:

“BSC daily transaction volume is up by 300% from YTD and bolsters an ecosystem of 100+ DeFi projects. Furthermore, the platform has succeeded in maintaining GAS costs as low as $0.04. Compared to Ethereum’s $5.53, BSC is 135 times less expensive!”

While Eth2’s phased launch promises speed in its proposed roadmap, history suggests that these launches often miss the deadline, with no clarity of when the actual updates will be done. Since Ethereum will take time to implement its scaling solutions, which should eventually reduce the gas fees on the network, until that point, blockchains like BSC stand to benefit the most from its delays.

The network speed of Ethereum compared with BSC could also be one of the reasons that DeFi protocols are migrating to BSC, as it is comparatively faster. BSC allows 300 transactions per second, while Ethereum, despite its higher transaction fees, can only process 15 transactions per second.

Blockchain disruption

Lower transaction fees and network speed might not be the only reasons that some DeFi protocols are migrating to BSC. The fact that BSC is 100% compatible with DeFi’s flagship blockchain, Ethereum — which allows protocols to deploy their application on top of BSC with no additional changes — is a design victory for Binance. The Binance spokesperson further spoke on some of the other reasons:

“Feedback we have heard is the DeFi protocols are increasingly chain agnostic. The rapid growth of BSC shows the users prefer lower transaction fees. BSC also provides a variety of assets, many of which are not available on DeFi protocols on Ethereum.”

Although various other blockchains like Cardano and Polkadot are trying to break Ethereum’s hegemony in the DeFi and NFT markets, none have quite achieved success at the rapid rate Binance Smart Chain is now witnessing. Disruptive blockchain innovation is bound to push the industry forward by challenging the status quo and pushing blockchain developers to focus on building universal, well-connected blockchains.

Related: DEXs becoming unusable? How to navigate record gas fees ahead of Eth2

Billy Adams, head of ecosystem development at XinFin — an open-source hybrid blockchain platform — told Cointelegraph that he believes blockchains like BSC are beneficial for the entire ecosystem:

“The market is demonstrating an appetite for emerging DeFi solutions, which can provide investor protection, sufficient liquidity for MSMEs and support interoperability between both other blockchains and legacy systems.”

BNB price surges as Binance Smart Chain grows in popularity with DeFi

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Ontology- A Decentralized Identity Framework and its Wide Applications

Curious to understand what Ontology platform is? Why is it under the limelight for long? How can it transform the automotive industry? So let’s get started. 

Table of Contents 

  • Overview of Ontology
  • Ontology: An Expanding Network
  • Its Latest Decentralized Identity Solution
  • Ontology to Build Trust in the Automotive Industry
  • The Verdict 

Overview of Ontology

Ontology is a high performance, open-source blockchain that lets individuals and businesses to enjoy the full benefits of blockchain. 

Blockchain is a P2P distributed ledger technology that offers decentralization, immutability, transparency, and security without dependence on a central authority or third-parties. 

Ontology, a decentralized blockchain-based framework, aims at solving the issues associated with identity security and data integrity. It aims at providing cross-chain collaboration and layer-2 scalability while still retaining control of their sensitive data, thus offering flexibility to businesses to a great extent. Instead of forcing organizations and businesses to use a single public blockchain, a platform allows businesses with greater flexibility in designing a blockchain that works for them. It has its own native cryptocurrency, Ontology Coin(ONT) 

As Ontology continues to introduce new and unique features for its users, it remains under the limelight for a long time. 

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Ontology: An Expanding Network

Ontology is an expanding network that allows developers to build on top of its blockchain. Ontology offers various features, including ONT ID, a mobile digital ID application, and DID.

Unlike traditional systems, ONT ID is a single sign-on approach that offers a compelling alternative to the “antiquated” landscape and uses cryptography algorithms to identify and connect identities and assets without breaching security.

As it plans to cater to increased demand for cross-chain interoperability, the company is cultivating and expanding a decentralized identity partner network; it outlines the integration of the solution into BTC, ETH, Celo, Tron, etc., which is under construction now. 


The company’s founder, Li Jun, said: “With these new integrations, our tailored decentralized identity solutions now offer a higher degree of chain interoperability, greatly elevating the status of our offerings within the industry.

Its Latest Decentralized Identity Solution

Followed by this use case, Ontology also introduced a new decentralized identity solution, making it easier for crypto traders and crypto holders to securely manage and exchange their digital assets. 

Through this solution, crypto holders can access a complete view of all their assets through the Ontology website or ONTO app. No matter what wallets those assets are held in, crypto holders will have a clear picture of their digital assets. 

Apart from this, users will be able to access their Ontology’s credit scoring system on any chain.

This unique decentralized identity solution aims at connecting users’ assets to their identity, thus providing increased security and trust to all parties involved. It aims to connect the missing pieces of decentralized finance’s ecosystem all in one place. 

Want to have in-depth understanding of cryptocurrencies? Become a Certified Cryptocurrency Expert today!

Ontology to Build Trust in the Automotive Industry

Since its release in 2017, Ontology has made huge achievements across various domains. As it continues to make remarkable efforts, it has recently launched a unique decentralized identity to transform the automotive industry. 

For focusing on this industry, Ontology offers a blockchain-based decentralized digital identity solution that allows data related to driving to be stored and verified safely without compromising security. Not only this, but the platform also aims at offering multiple benefits to drivers and a wider audience of the automotive industry. 

The entire process is easy. 

Initially, a driver has to activate ONT ID, Ontology’s mobile digital ID application, and decentralized framework. This process allows drivers to manage his/her digital ID by storing their data locally on the phone or on trusted cloud storage securely. As we already mentioned, ONT ID uses cryptography algorithms (with a private key) to identify and connect identities and assets and grants. When a driver wants to open his smart lock enabled car, his data is recorded securely. Thus, ONT ID can be utilized as a unified account that gives control of their data in their own hands. 

Furthermore, the Ontology platform also supports a built-in ONTO self-sovereign data wallet, a mobile app for the data, and asset management that allows drivers to share their driving details with other ONT users instantly. 

And if in case a car accident takes place, the driver can instantly settle his insurance pay through an Ontology-powered insurance application.

The Verdict

Ontology is not only transforming the automotive industry; it is allowing businesses to selectively choose what information they want to share from their own blockchain. Few consider this platform as a potential boon for all those who want to keep going with the blockchain revolution.

To get instant updates about blockchain certifications and become a blockchain expert, check out Blockchain Council.

Ontology- A Decentralized Identity Framework and its Wide Applications

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Hackers publish ExecuPharm internal data after ransomware attack

U.S. pharmaceutical giant ExecuPharm has become the latest victim of data-stealing ransomware.

ExecuPharm said in a letter to the Vermont attorney general’s office that it was hit by a ransomware attack on March 13, and warned that Social Security numbers, financial information, driver’s licenses and passport numbers, and other sensitive data may have been accessed.

But TechCrunch has now learned that the ransomware group behind the attack has published the data stolen from the company’s servers.

It’s an increasingly popular tactic used by ransomware groups, which not only encrypts a victim’s files but also exfiltrates the data and threatens to publish the data if a ransom isn’t paid. This new technique was first used by Maze, a ransomware group that first started hitting targets in December. Since then, a number of new and emerging groups, including DoppelPaymer and Sodinokibi have adopted the same approach.

The data was posted to a site on the dark web associated with the CLOP ransomware group. The site contains a vast cache of data, including thousands of emails, financial and accounting records, user documents and database backups, stolen from ExecuPharm’s systems.

When reached, a company executive confirmed to TechCrunch that CLOP was behind the attack.

“ExecuPharm immediately launched an investigation, alerted federal and local law enforcement authorities, retained leading cybersecurity firms to investigate the nature and scope of the incident, and notified all potentially impacted parties,” said ExecuPharm operations chief David Granese.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, some of the ransomware groups have shown mercy on medical facilities that they have pledged not to attack during the pandemic. CLOP said it too would not attack hospitals, nursing homes or charities, but said ExecuPharm would not qualify, saying that commercial pharmaceutical companies “are the only ones who benefit from the current pandemic.”

Unlike some strains of ransomware, there is no known decryption tool for CLOP. Maastricht University found out the hard way after it was attacked last year. The Dutch university paid out close to $220,000 worth of cryptocurrency to decrypt its hundreds of servers.

The FBI has previously warned against paying the ransom.

The sinkhole that saved the internet

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/execupharm-clop-ransomware/

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